How has your year been so far? Whether it's been a roaring success or a bit of a rollercoaster, as we head into the last quarter, your leadership batteries might be a little depleted.
As leaders it's natural to focus on being resilient but making the big calls can be energy sapping and emotionally exhausting. It’s vital for you, your team, and your business that you you take step back and refresh your reserves.
If you're feeling like you're running on low, here are some areas to focus on:
Identify the triggers
If you’re feeling exhausted, try to identify any triggers. It could be conflict in the team, client demands, tricky relationships, or sheer quantity of work, if you can narrow down what’s sapping your energy, just taking a step away from those tasks and situations could help.
Set recovery times
Constantly operating at full throttle isn’t sustainable. Try to build internal and external times for recovery. In work set scheduled breaks, take a lunch away from your desk, switch off your emails and mute your phone. Away from the office try to get down time between workdays and take a proper break from stress and decision-making. Think about what’s occupying your brain on your ‘off’ time. If twitter, politics, or football for example just add to your stress they probably aren’t helping you get the recovery you need.
Take a tech break
If the ping or the push is just too hard to resist you might need an enforced tech break. Not sure how much you use your phone? Downloads Instant and track your usage for a couple of days. There are lots of apps like Offtime that you can use to schedule tech breaks that allow your brain to really take some time off.
Boost your reserves
By building the things that energise you into everyday life you’ll have the reserves to call on in difficult times. ‘Energising’ doesn’t mean ‘high-energy’, it’s whatever makes you feel good, content, in control, and detached from work. It could be going for a run or walk, connecting with family and friends, reading, gardening, cooking, mindfulness… whatever it is make time for it and stick to it.
Sleep equals productivity
According to Arianna Huffington in The Sleep Revolution, our loss of sleep adds up to 11 days of lost productivity every year. It’s the ultimate and possibly most important way we can recharge our batteries. If you’re struggling to switch off and get real rest, check out som of Huffington’s tips.
Reconnect with your core values
All roads lead back to purpose. When we’re connected with our core values, we can use these to navigate challenges and stay anchored to our goals. Take some time to reflect on whether you’re using your energy on the right things or if your time is being sapped by people and tasks that don’t bring you satisfaction or progress.
From rest comes resilience
The temptation to keep going, to push through even when we’re feeling low on energy can be strong. But homeostasis is a biological necessity, the brain needs to be continuously restored and sustained to move forward. It takes time and discipline to focus on rest and recharge, but when you’re firing on all cylinders you’ll notice the difference in all areas of your life.